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Campaign Comedy
Political Humor from Clinton to Kennedy

Gerald Gardner
It is the presidential campaign humor created by America's comedians, humorists, journalists, editorial cartoonists, and the candidates themselves that writer Gerald Gardner celebrates in Campaign Comedy. He reviews the humor, from the caustic to the comedic, that most recently targeted Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Ross Perot in the explosive 1992 election. He also focuses, in a campaign-by-campaign format, on the humor generated by the presidential campaigns ranging back to the epochal struggle between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Candidates including Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Lyndon Johnson, and the men they defeated are also the subject of the hilarious or vicious wit that is chronicled here. Campaign Comedy is brimming with relevant and pithy humor from Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Art Buchwald, Mark Russell, Bob Hope, Mort Stahl, Garry Trudeau, and more. "This is an amusing and extensive compilation of the humor expressed in presidential campaigns and reigns since 1960. Citing comedians, cartoonists, columnists and the politicians themselves, [Gardner] describes the comedic themes concerning each candidate and recounts the best jokes." —Publishers Weekly
 
Humor in Life and Letters Series

$39.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-2504-1


240 pages

1994

Originally published by WSU Press in 1988 under the title
The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie